What is it like being a Manager?

What is it like being a product manager at Apple in comparison to being a product manager at an Internet/software company?

• As software/ Internet product is much quicker to prototype and to scale up for A/B testing, how does a product manager at Apple make decisions, especially when it comes to the physical goods? Apple is known for Steve Jobs' prophetic vision. The myth has been about him pushing the entire innovation boundary. But do you do much of research work, such as usability testing, stakeholders interviews, etc. to validate the gut feeling? Do you follow a certain process that's different from a product manager of software product?

• Answer:

  Unlike every other company that wants to develop new products by finding new technology, adding more components to add features,; I as a product manager in Apple have been doing counter intuitive development. I have been instructed by the boss to following a consistent instruct. Pick an existing technology and product that can do better with repositioning and changing the business Model. Strip and study all the components of such product. Then what most consider to be a core component is to be removed and not with intention to cut costs. This Constant subtraction has led us to continuously developing a better product which gives the customer a far better user experience based on ease of navigation and mind blowing design. Decade or more ago we got to remove the floppy drive, then gradually with every new product we got rid of the hard disk, then many buttons, then the USB port, and recently even the mouse and cursor. Which other company gets to keep subtracting and making a zapping and better product every time and charging much more than any other company doing subtraction from existing hardware technologies.